Burke and Hare: Review

A few weeks ago, one of the 80s great directors made a triumphant return. Joe Dante was back and on top form with The Hole. Now another big name director who made his name in the 80s has made a comeback with the genre that made him famous. John Landis, who was propelled to super director after An American Werewolf In London and more so, Michael Jackson's Thriller video, has teamed up with Ealing Studios to bring us Burke and Hare, a fun comedy horror. Fun it certainly is. Compared to Dante's film, it's not as triumphant.

It's Edinburgh in the 1800s and two warring medical colleges are constantly outbidding each other for recently executed bodies, used for medical experiments, until the richer of the two slaps a court injunction on having exclusive rights to the deceased. Meanwhile, Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare are struggling to make ends meet. Hare's wife, who is landlady to elderly gentlemen, isn't having much luck either, especially when one has just died. Getting rid of the body isn't easy, until the men discover that the college short of bodies will pay grandly. So the hapless partners begin to find ways of delivering these corpses.

The infamous body snatchers tale is played out for morbid laughs, with Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis perfectly cast in the leads, playing nicely off each other. Pegg gets to add a little light relief with his subplot of being infatuated with pretty actress Isla Fisher, who needs him to finance her all-female version of Macbeth. Jessica Hynes (Pegg's comedy partner in the cult TV show Spaced) gets the more physical comedy as Hare's drunken wife.

One of the joys and a trademark of Landis' previous films, is littering it with cameos from the great and good in British entertainment. Christopher Lee, Paul Whitehouse and Stephen Merchant all pop up while comedy legend Ronnie Corbett gets to ham it up as the chief of police.

There are some grisly laughs and a couple of innuendos that wouldn't look out of place in a Carry On film, as well as the occasional Landis comic touches. Yes it does have a few good laughs, it suffers from not being funny enough. Without taking away the talented cast's energy and likability, you chuckle more than belly laugh.

It's nice to have Landis back behind the camera, and it is great fun. It just leaves you wanting more.